The Culture of Therapy v. The Culture of Wisdom

Russell Moore’s lament on the loss of the doctrine of sin in dealing with wife-beaters has me thinking about just how pervasive the “culture of therapy” has become. I think that psychology has a valuable place in the world as a discipline, but in a sense it has become the official religion of secularism.

If students in school are problematic, they’re advised to see a counselor. Anyone today who suffers emotional trauma but rejects counseling is likened to a cancer patient who refuses chemotherapy. Moore highlights the therapy groups that supposedly help spouse-abusers come to terms with “the psychological roots of their violent behavior.”

Christians must walk a fine line when it comes to psychology, because the canon of therapy is in more than a few places at odds with the canon of Scripture. In many theraputic models, no one is a fault for anything. Most counseling is done post-traumatic-event. It is reactionary, trying to assess the root of the problem.

I’ve been reading through the book of Proverbs recently, and I see a different kind of counseling modeled here. It is a counsel of wisdom that is pre-emptive, one that says things like, “Do not let kindness and truth leave you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart.” (Proverbs 3:3) Of course, things of this nature will not be found in the pop wisdom that governs the culture of therapy.